actually, alcoholic isn't that effective a descriptor for ALL the MANY different people who have substance abuse issues.

some people are binge drinkers, some can stop on their own, some drink in response to a terrible life event.

the "true alcoholic" of AA fame (from what 12 steppers call the "big book") is someone who has no effective mental defense against the first drink.

so, although they realize the calamity that drinking entails, and although they swear off and quit and curse their maker over and over, they find themselves trapped by what bill wilson calls "a mental blank spot." and anything can set it off. they find themselves drinking again.

in the depths of my struggle with booze, i likened it to having two people living in my head: one that wanted to do good and succeed and another that wanted to destroy me.

but i see that all as a royal mindfuck.

i drink because it accomplishes things i cannot accomplish by myself emotionally and coping wise - and because at times i actually like it. and because i am afraid of perceving reality without that short circuit.

but the press of the devastation and the reduction in my quality of life is causing me to rethink much of this and start to use some responsibility to not actually go over the deep end or to stop entirely.

A person so overwrought with depression, or events that would cause depression (such as rejection - typically job loss, relationship problems, self-esteem issues having gone down because of a string of incidents...)

I also believe some minds are more vulnerable than others. Not all people respond to alcohol with a feel-good form. Myself being a case example, alcohol merely elevates my ambient mood. I do not lose any inhibitions at all. Or maybe I have not ingested a sufficient quantity of the alcoholic beverages in question. (at age 16, two long island iced teas was sufficient to make me feel "carefree". Today, two of them do nothing, and I do not drink alcohol very often at all. Nor did I back then either. )

Dunno. But alcoholism is much like drugs, television, unsafe sex, politics, you name it. An addiction.

is one theory, and while it doesn't answer all the questions, it answers many of them.

Another theory is that there is a region in the hypothalamus (sp?) part of the "pleasure center" which emits certain chemicals when activated by a substance, and in those with addictive personalities, it is on an amped up basis. As a result, the addictive personality gets addicted sooner than someone who doesn't have the same chemical response.

Other than that, I couldn't say, even though there are alcoholics in the family.

they aren't the like, get falling down drunk and kick each other around alcoholics. They just get drunk every day, and it can make them a little unpredictable and weird, but like, they weren't ever dangerous or violent or whatever.

but a familial one. In my family, at least three siblings in my father's family (sister and both brothers) were alcoholics. My mother's brother was an alcoholic as well on that side of the family. The family profile includes all "first" relatives: aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and on backward. It can skip a generation and manifest itself in a grandchild, or go to a first cousin or such along the way. My mother could have been an alcoholic, but when we were teenagers, she stopped and never really drank much after that.

On the other hand, an adopted brother, who recently died at the age of 43, was a diehard alcoholic and his family had an enormous amount of child abuse in it from the father who was also an alcoholic. His sister is my sister in law (she married my brother) and she has always told me of the abuse they all suffered. (There were 8 of them, and after both parents died, they scattered to the four winds.)

There are quite a few studies out there on alcoholism, but you might just want to check out the al-ateen website or al-anon site. (They're associated) They have literature available for young people and relatives of alcoholics and how people need to learn to deal with them. There is usually a meeting schedule in most big cities with their own chapters where you can also pick up literature as well, or have something mailed to you. Just a suggestion--it helped me years ago when dealing with some of the alcoholics in my own life.

I drink very frequently but never get "drunk". I like my wine but I know when to stop. I like the taste, I like a slight buzz, but I never get to the point where it affects my speech, my actions or my judgment. No one around me can ever tell I've been drinking, yet the frequency and the fact that I "crave" wine makes me think I might have a problem. Can you possibly be an alcoholic without it actually affecting your daily life?

soda pop. That doesn't mean I'm addicted to soda, it means I *like* it and want it. Same with, I dunno, chips or curry or whatever. Sometimes, I get cravings for Fule or broken rice that just WONT go away. I'm hardly an Ethiopian or vietnamese food addict that needs a 12 step program, I just like those things. SO I somehow don't think craving something you enjoy is a definitive point of alcoholism. I wouldn't worry.

else in your life. When it changes your life. I see it as being like an allergic reaction. Some people can drink and have no problems at all...some people take that first drink and it takes over. The rest of the world ceases to exist and it becomes all about that next drink.

46. i think that for 'normal' folk, the ball can get rolling and they maybe...

Edited on Sun Aug-20-06 11:10 PM by bridgit

can't stop it somehow...for others it will be seen as an amalgam of ill fitting circumstance, or societal dynamic, as mentioned above; for yet others there can be a chemical predisposition; not unlike Kim Basinger alluded to in her roll in 'blind date', i've known them oh boy...

but 'alcoholism' as but one on a tick-list of addictions in the pantheon of sorrows? absent the chemical component? can be fed back around and into itself by way of, to put it into a phrase; a broken heart and the desire to mend it...imo many garden variety additions start as a need to self medicate around an intractable sorrow

on the way to the store today there was a guy with a piece of plywood he was holding up for whatever reason just staring at it, round the backside as we drove by we seen that his pants had fallen down to his socks, and he didn't seem to have a care or a clue about the happenstance, but he was clearly looped, though on what it is hard to say...

on the way back, he had laid it down and was snoozing on it, with a little bag of something or other he had picked up from somewhere else

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